You Look Like Shit, But Your Kerning is Excellent!
Becoming a creative pro and the state of today’s seekers.
I’ve always harbored an inclination to be a creative type because I never had a taste for actively meeting people, but if they found a reason to make my acquaintance: cool. I was that kid at wedding receptions, situated in the back corner with crayons and paper, drawing the curious glances of adults. I evolved into the teen who painted skateboards and indulged in graffiti stenciling all over the small town I grew up in. This evolution made it clear that fine art wasn’t my lane; the more I created, the more I craved for more people to see my mess. Graphic design was where my future lay.
So, post a failed scholarship and a breakup, I found myself under the tutelage of some of the finest designers from Eastern Europe who, exiled to a medium-sized university in one of the most backward parts of the US, became some of the greatest influences in my life. They were perceived as hard asses with no sense of humour in my eyes, but in reality, they were pros, sharing pieces of their experience. A Russian named Eric Pervukhin illuminated what work could truly be, pushing me to juggle racing bicycles around the US, planning and promoting races, building my portfolio, and contributing to an indie newspaper for my cohort Chuck.
This lengthy introduction is crucial to understanding my growth, particularly when discussing first jobs in the creative field. Mine involved designing annual reports, B2B magazines, and logos. It sucked. Tom, my boss, ingrained in me that the day ends when the job is done and that weekends were for playing catch-up to those smarter and better. Getting fucked up was my method to fall asleep after 14-hour days with merely 5 hours of sleep awaiting me. From that job, they only became larger and harder; eventually finding life in some of the world’s largest agencies, spanning different parts of the world and involving more people. Advertising and experiential marketing became my preferred domains, leading a fuck-ton more lemmings to whatever place to buy whatever thing was far more appealing. As I’ve rolled on, I’ve done just about everything from packaging to packaging up Olympic Games for brands. I even added copywriting to my quiver. You can’t really reach without reaching further than your paw’s little grasp.
In my growth, I’ve had the opportunity to play the role of Eric to some young individuals in the land of creative. Some were poseurs, and some were masochistic enough to love it. The field, despite having better and better tools, remains incredibly hard and competitive. It offers impromptu drunk lunches and brushes with celebrities, but it is brutally taxing, leaving behind a path of destructive relationships and bad habits. I’ve become known as a bit of a “fixer,” evaluating, reporting, restructuring, and in some cases, restaffing teams. Whether it was aligning offices in China with their “motherships” in the US or instilling organized thinking and traffic processes in Africa, I’ve been the business builder through creative, and “suit” whisperer along the way.
The young designers of today often lack core skills, are ill-prepared, come with unrealistic expectations, and are believed to possess some magical insights into youth. Today’s young Turks are even more ill-prepared, lacking basic colour theory, understanding of type rules, or the realization that solutions often need to be churned quickly. They find themselves going up against seasoned pros who know that the first answer is merely there for the client to reject, necessitating five more rounds to make them feel valued by the agency. Is it their fault? I don’t think it is entirely. Their expensive educations have come with cheap information and they’ve emerged heavy on tools but light on knowing “why” we do anything we do or questioning “if” we should do it differently. They’ve learned to type, but not about typefaces, and as we usher them into our land of professionals, they seem to know more about TikTok and their desires but lack knowledge about what the other “they” want and how to communicate beyond moving some items around on their screens. Because while some of us evolved from ink to think, they’re simply hopping from platform to platform.
I have met and worked with several emerging creatives who can articulate well, showcasing intrigue and motivation, but often, they seem lost on how and where to initiate their tasks. I understand that this observation might seem like a sweeping generalization, much like the ones often made about generations X, Y, Z, or whatever label we assign. While running a creative think tank, GumboLive, tailored for millennials, I encountered individuals with active and curious minds, capable of conceptualizing streaming interview series, responding to client briefs, and innovating portfolio solutions, even when lacking tangible work. They adeptly integrated my insights into their projects, with many now holding managerial positions in leading digital, content, and creative agencies worldwide, functioning in diverse capacities.
In China, my interaction was predominantly with Generation Y, who, despite cultural and circumstantial differences, exhibited an insatiable thirst for knowledge and swiftly implemented learning. They managed to translate my English to Chinese and vice versa, assimilated basics like presentation structures, and integrated marketing principles into their solid technical foundations, attributing to the rigorous design education they received — say what you want about the communists, but they certainly instilled some design basics and rules. Individuals from my teams in Shanghai and Beijing have earned accolades, established companies, and spread across the globe for study and work.
However, pivoting focus to the present state and our methodologies, it’s essential to critically examine the prevailing practices and paradigms in the creative world. Any casual Google search will yield articles on how those under 25 feel undervalued, overworked, underpaid, and seemingly suffering for it. It even appears they are reconsidering their decisions to jump into this organized chaos. It begs the question: who, and at what point, did we fail them in preparing for what has always been a gruelling and mentally brutal profession?
One glaring problem I see does trace back to the very basics — those software and platforms that are supposed to make us all faster and superior. Young grads are expected to know digital, video, design, copy, art, and pretty much everything, before even getting to the basics they should have mastered before even laying a finger on a mouse. The relentless demands of perpetually shifting trends, diverse audiences and restrictions on discourse, combined with obsessive overthinking and analysis of fleeting matters, are likely significant contributors.
Now, what I’m struggling to reconcile is the stark difference between the 30 and 40-year-olds, saddled with families and real-life concerns, who are regularly clocking in longer days, and the 20-somethings who maybe thought this was all going to be about discussing cool stuff and only executing the fun parts. I’m seeing stories about how Gen-Z is pissed at the generations before them, accusing them of crafting the messes they are left to deal with and refusing to heed their seemingly more enlightened solutions. But didn’t we all experience this to some extent? Maybe the difference is that the old-school creatives understood why we had booze-fueled rants post-work and didn’t spill our guts on social media, choosing instead to rant, bitch, and scream in the real world.
Life as a professional creative isn’t a serene journey — it’s a turbulent, unremitting roller coaster through ever-changing realms, a perpetual grind from secluded corners with crayons to spearheading breakthrough projects on the global stage. We’ve lived it, we’ve breathed it — the exhilarating peaks and the debilitating fails. Every generation takes from the last, its unique arsenal, its battles. But amidst this tempest, We can’t lose grasp on our roots, of the essence that fueled our odyssey in the first place.
The young blood today seem submerged in this pandemonium, some of it of their own making, grappling with perceived overwork and lack of recognition, all while trying to make sense of the ‘whys’ and ‘whats’. Perhaps it’s time we reflect on both the differences and the similarities. Are we extending the right kind of anchors? Are we guiding them through the tempest, or are we just bystanders, witnessing them flounder, stranded in a vortex of tech and fads, detached from the core principles of our craft? If so, should we — as agencies, creatives, and clients — be allocating time, budget, and understanding to teach the fundamentals that Tom, Eric, Cedomir, Roman, Maria, Steve, Mike and Mark drilled into me? What I am certain of is that we cannot coddle or kowtow to their perceptions of today, when it is they who will be instructing those who arrive tomorrow.
So, this is our alarm bell. Let’s reconnect with our roots, reignite the wonder and raw passion, and pass on the flashlight of enduring wisdom and lived experiences. Let’s machine some learnings between the grit of the before times and the finesse of the now, creating a space where insights flow, wisdom is universal, and creativity is unbound. In our often misguided needs for attention, let’s safeguard the spirit of our craft and help them keep attracting the curious to their own back tables of connecting. And, let’s ensure our kerning remains perfect, even when we’re totally fucked.
